Starcraft: Brood War Has Received Its First Patch In A Decade; Now Free To Play

Blizzard has upheld the first half of its promise to bring Starcraft back to life. The company has released patch 1.18 for Starcraft: Brood War; and has made the game free to download.

The new patch is largely concerned with making the game compatible with newer computers and servers; as well as updating the dated interface for the game. Improved matchmaking, display for APM, and an observer mode have all been added to the classic RTS.

This is the first step in Blizzard’s Starcraft: Remastered promise, that will see the game updated with 4K graphics. The remastered Starcraft is set to retail for $20 when it’s released; but will retain the capability to play against those on the free download version of the game.

Blizzard advises people to use the “Run as Admin” option when installing the patch. This is supposedly to help migrate save games and avoid issues with Windows admin changes. Which is amusing since it assumes that people still have Starcraft installed on their computers. Although, to be fair, some people probably still do.

Mac users will be glad to note that they have not been forgotten, and the game is also available for free on their preferred platform.